Creative Agenda and GNS

There's no such framework. As far as I'm concerned, this is the live conversation.

every rpg text I've read starts with the assumtion that there will be an engaging and coherant fictional world created in play. None of them (except for a very few) talk explicitly about winners and losers. Does that mean that I haven't read any Step on Up supporting texts?

GNS was addressed to RPG instances of play, not to RPG texts.

ok, maybe this will highlight an element of step-on-up, and why it's not Story now, and why that conflict is a bad thing and something that needs to be differentiated.

In a D&D game back in the day, our DM described what to everything we could tell was a troll.  had all the behaviours of, looked like it, we as a group agreed yep, troll.  Cool, kill with fire, bob's your uncle.

Except that our DM had decided that, because he thought it was unrealistic that our characters could recognize monsters just because us as players recognized them, he was deliberately misleading us.  turns out it was something else of equal challenge but with completely different weaknesses and strengths.

I can't speak for the other players, but I for one was pissed when I figured out what was going on.  not because it "broke the fiction" that this thing wasn't a troll, but because if we had a particular approach and tactic laid out all about beating a troll.  Yes the description and all that was done in fiction terms, but what was the driving force in that game for me as a player was to win, and I felt that I was cheated of that by a cheap trick.  And while what he did was really fucking problematic on a Social contract level, it also was because his desire from the game was different from mine/ours.

This is, most definitely, not Story now.  Did it matter to me that the fiction make some sort of coherent sense?  sure, for aesthetic reasons.  But primarily it was about overcoming the challenge.

Simon, can you see why what I described is NOT Story Now play even though things are done in a fictional setting with fictional coherence?  now, maybe if I had been bothered by the fact that the monster was misdescribed, had somehow made the story less interesting, or had broken my fictional conception of the world, then I could see the argument.  but really what was broken about it was that it was the DM deliberately messing with a tactical advantage I gained by changing a detail in the world.

Come to think of it when I play like this I view making coherent fiction as a strategic obstacle:  how do I explain my real-world knowledge in a way that makes sense fictionally, so that I can use it in game?  I'm trying to make coherent fiction because doing that is a rule of the game, not because it is why I'm playing.

Motipha,

You're confusing me saying I don't find GNS useful with me saying I don't believe there are creative agendas. I'm on the creative agenda train, I'm just not getting off at the GNS station.

There's certainly an interesting discussion to be had about what role the fiction plays in games where players are more invested in displaying tactical skill and in-game knowledge. I'm unsatisfied with the explanation that it exists just as a space to manipulate for advantage. Unreliable currencies (such as are garnered by judgements of the fiction) are unsatisfying for hard-core competitive play.

Mike,

Hence why I say "Step on Up supporting" texts. If (I genuinely don't know) there are no texts that explicitly support Step on Up play, people could still be playing Step on Up by drifting game rules in play to support their creative agenda.

But that's all about the far less interesting subject.

Here's what I find interesting and useful:

I think there are three broad aspects of play that contribute to creative agenda - three sources of enjoyment that in combination (not exclusively) make up a creative agenda. Here's what I think they are:

Theme

When you play a game, you produce fiction, when you look at that fiction, when you "read" it as a text, it has a meaning - a message. It has a theme. Like, if your young farm boy grows up to kill a dragon and marry a princess, it has themes about personal agency, heroism, and so on. If you play unscrupulous mercenaries murdering orcs for pay, it says another thing, about the value of the lives of "other" peoples, and such. Doesn't matter what you intend to say with your game, there's a meaning there. Some groups pay attention to and appreciate that meaning as they're playing. Some do that more than others.

Some groups enjoy play where the meaning is explicit and negotiated during play - you don't know what the meaning of the game will be until you play it, but you care about which way it goes.

Other groups want the theme to be more like an organising principle: a single question we set up at the start and then find out the answer to in play: Can good overcome evil? What price loyalty?

And some other groups want the theme to be a statement that's reinforced through play (they might not say that, but they do). Like "Good always triumphs" or "Other cultures are sub-human" or something like that.

Experience
When you play a game, it makes you feel certain things. Like in AW you feel like you've been punched in the gut when you've gotta make some hard call. Or in The Mountain Witch you feel tingly and suspicious when you think about what the other characters' Dark Fates are. Or in Bliss Stage you feel weirdly exposed and intimate the first time you go into the Dream. Some groups care more about the experience of play than others.

Some groups appreciate feeling very close to how their character feels. Play is for feeling strong emotions, for making tough decisions, for seeing how it feels to be in particular circumstances. Good players get close to their character.

Some groups appreciate feeling closer to the other players when they play. Play helps you understand people differently, or helps you reinforce social bonds. Good players are emotionally vulnerable in play (or at least amiable and amicable).

Performance
When you play, you're displaying skills: improvisational skills, acting and oratorial skills, tactical skills. Also knowledge of the game's rules, the game's setting, and so on.

Some groups appreciate a well-performed character. You act out a powerful scene, and everyone else finds it convincing and enjoyable. You talk in-character for an hour, and everyone is like *high five*.

Some groups appreciate tactical skill. You moved your dude into the right square, maximising your chances of hitting the monster. Everyone nods, being like "right on". Often those same groups appreciate clever use of in-game knowledge, like, "I took sleep because it's the best spell" or "I brought fire-arrows, to use against those trolls".

Every group will have its own way of appreciating the three things above. Some of them will get a lot of attention, and some of them will get very little. They're all important to the experience of play though.

I think that talking about these three things is useful to explaining play and design.

Simon, very thought provoking stuff! I'm processing that, but at first glance those three criteria seem useful and interesting. Sorry I don't have anything constructive to say just yet.

Well, but theme isn't present in all roleplaying. Raw thematic matter - passions and conflicts - is common, but not universal. Passionate characters escalating through conflicts to crisis and resolution, far less so.

They're cool things! They fit into the Big Model as "this is what it's like, sometimes, when you're grooving on fulfilling a coherent creative agenda."

Calling them "creative agenda" themselves, though, is a misuse of the term, and is probably just holding back the conversations you want to have. We're having this dumb conversation instead.

Just to show that I'm genuinely not hostile, here's something I wrote that I'm super proud of that fits into the same noble, worthy, design-fruitful "this is what it's like, sometimes, when you're grooving on fulfilling a coherent creative agenda" territory:
http://lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=22

Oh yeah, they're totally not creative agendas in of themselves, they're just some things that are fun about roleplaying games.

Well, but theme isn't present in all roleplaying. Raw thematic matter - passions and conflicts - is common, but not universal. Passionate characters escalating through conflicts to crisis and resolution, far less so.

I dunno. By the Big Model definition of theme, then sure, absolutely. But in the literary criticsm sense (which I might be horribly misusing), I think any work can be read as a text and you can glean meaning from it. Passionate characters etc. aren't a requirement for a work to mean something, right? They're just an awesome (possibly the only) way to have that meaning be explicit and relevant and negotiated in play.

Here's what I'm getting at: We play our bunch of dudes, all sword-bearing psycopaths, barely even personalities, let alone protagonists. We send them out murdering folk who look different from them, just because it's fun for us to show off our skills at that. I think that means something. I think the violence isn't just backdrop, I think it's central to the experience of the game. It's fun because it's us, me and my buddies, triumphing over the things that are not us.

People who just want to show off their tactical skills play chess.

I dunno. Is this making any sense? It's frustrating because I feel like there's this connection missing between what you're saying and what I'm hearing, and vice versa, and in person I'd be like "oh shit, of course!" and you'd be like "sheesh, finally", and then we'd high five.

Crossposted!

Oh yeah, I'm not getting hostility, maybe just frustration that this is still an issue after all these years.

I don't have any emotional investment in proving GNS wrong or anything. I'm cool with that. What I'm thinking is that there's not good language for talking about creative agenda more finely than those broad categories, and it would be cool if there was, because I feel like there are whole worlds of design out there that we don't even know how to talk about.

People who just want to show off their tactical skills play chess.

I used to say the same thing to Ben Lehman! He showed me that D&D (Moldvoy) is in fact a really fun game. Chess, Canasta, Pit, Apples To Apples, D&D, Uno, Roborally, Mechaton - each and all uniquely fun, uniquely demanding, honest-to-god games.

The role of coherent fiction, often including raw thematic matter (but it's not a requirement), is one of the things that makes D&D a really fun, interesting game.

But anyway! Let me start a new thread, I'll spill what I've been thinking about framework. It's much more difficult stuff than GNS is, as befits.

Hilarious! It was playing lots of Moldvay D&D that convinced me of the opposite!

GNS was addressed to RPG instances of play, not to RPG texts.

I've heard this. But either system influences and facilitates creative agenda or system doesn't matter. We can't have it both ways.

Quote from: misuba on September 13, 2010, 04:12:57 PM

GNS was addressed to RPG instances of play, not to RPG texts.

I've heard this. But either system influences and facilitates creative agenda or system doesn't matter. We can't have it both ways.

Amen.

It's not complicated, but it's not direct either. GNS describes play. Play may or may not follow formal rules, which may or may not come from a game text.

You can look at a game text and say "if you follow these rules, you'll get Story Now play," or whatever, but Story Now applies to play, not to what's in the text.

It's not complicated, but it's not direct either. GNS describes play. Play may or may not follow formal rules, which may or may not come from a game text.

You can look at a game text and say "if you follow these rules, you'll get Story Now play," or whatever, but Story Now applies to play, not to what's in the text.

Sure and I get the distinction. But it seems like a small and mostly unneeded one. Once we're in agreement about this point:

Apocalypse World's design contributes to play that fulfills a Story Now creative agenda. If you try to play Step On Up or Right To Dream with Apocalypse World, you'll find that you have to fight with the rules all the time, ignore them, recast them, and finally you'll adapt them or throw them out.

...then I think it's safe to say that Apocalypse World is a Story Now game, or at the very least, a Story Now-style game. If you can build a game with a certain CA in mind, then I think it's more than okay to identify that game as that certain CA type, as long as everyone understands that "hey, sure, you can play this game with a different agenda, but results may vary".

Because right now, we're at the point where we say "Hey, this isn't a Story Now game and calling it that is totally wrong because Story Now is how you play, not what you play, so stop calling it that, but if you play it with any other agenda it won't really work". Which is very confusing for people who don't spend all their free time reading RPG boards like me. :)